Kyrgyz Protesters Set Deadline For Distribution Of Land

Osh region Governor Sooronbai Jeenbekov met with some of the protesters on November 9 and promised to try to find them land in the suburbs.

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Kyrgyz Protesters Set Deadline For Distribution Of Land

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OSH, Kyrgyzstan -- Protesters in the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh have presented local officials with a list of residents who need land, RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service reports.

The protesters are at the center of a land-grab dispute, having earlier in the week tried to occupy land in ethnic Uzbek-populated villages by force.

The demonstrators told RFE/RL that a 12-person commission has compiled a list of more than 3,000 people who need land. The homes of many of them were destroyed during the violent clashes in June between local Uzbeks and Kyrgyz.

Osh region Governor Sooronbai Jeenbekov met with some of the protesters on November 9 and promised to try to find them land in the suburbs of Osh, but not in the ethnic Uzbek-populated villages of Kyzyl-Kyshtak and Ishkevan, where the hundreds of demonstrators had tried two days earlier to forcibly occupy agricultural land that belongs to Uzbeks.

In a statement issued today, the protesters said they would begin large demonstrations in Osh if local authorities did not start distributing land to them within three days.